Friday, February 05, 2010

The Other Side of the Barricades

In her book The Death of the Grownup, Diana West quotes this observation by a prominent writer:

When we are confronted only with violence for violence’s sake, and with attempts to frighten or intimidate an administration into doing things for which it can itself see neither the rationale nor the electoral mandate; when we are offered, as the only argument for change, the fact that a number of people are themselves very angry and excited; and when we are presented with a violent objection to what exists, unaccompanied by any constructive concept of what, ideally, ought to exist in its place — then we of my generation can only recognize that such behavior bears a disconcerting resemblance to phenomena we have witnessed within our own time in the origins of totalitarianism in other countries…

This seems appropriate to our current political circumstances. All across the West, attempts to frighten or intimidate — or even just self-induced fears that such attempts might occur — evoke cowardly reactions in our political leaders. From the Fort Hood Massacre to the Geert Wilders trial, from the streets of Cologne to the ivied halls of Yale, from the Anti-Zionist Party of Mohammed Omar to the “ten thousand angry Muslims” promised by Lord Ahmed: the frightening and intimidation initiated by Muslims are having their intended effect on the kafir, who bends himself into ever more debased positions of submission as a result.

The BarricadesThe above quote, however, was written more than forty years ago, and concerned the student uprisings of the late 1960s that drove fear into the hearts of college administrators and politicians across the USA.

The article, entitled “Rebels Without a Program”, was written in January 1968 by George F. Kennan, who went on to say:
- - - - - - - - -
People should bear in mind that if this — namely, noise, violence and lawlessness — is the way they are going to put their case, then many of us who are no happier than [the student radicals] are about some of the policies that arouse their indignation will have no choice but to place ourselves on the other side of the barricades.

Unfortunately, the sad outcome of the student tantrums of 1968 was that the majority of adults in positions of authority did not place themselves on the other side of the barricades. They gave in to student demands — sometimes reluctantly and piecemeal, sometimes willingly and with unseemly haste — and thereby ushered in the postmodern politically correct dystopia that all of us suffer under today.

The student radicals mau-maued their elders into submission, and today’s political leaders seem poised to recapitulate the same process in a 21st-century context.

I hear my train a-comin’The last three or four generations of Western political and intellectual leaders have killed and gutted a once-magnificent civilization and left the stinking corpse for the jackals of Islam to feast on. Or, to switch metaphors, our leftist radicals have managed to construct a complex and lethal cultural weapon, and have now handed over the keys and the operator’s manual to the Great Jihad.

It may be too late to do anything about this slow-motion train wreck, but it’s important to see clearly what has happened to us. Even if we can’t get out of the way in time, we can at least look up and see the monster engine steaming full-speed down the tracks at us.

21 comments:

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

"The last three or four generations of Western political and intellectual leaders have killed and gutted a once-magnificent civilization and left the stinking corpse for the jackals of Islam to feast on."

I think it is more important and necessary to ask from what section of society these leaders have come from in the case of the U.K. I would say they are a professional elite predominantly university educated drawen from an aspiring middle class.

Afonso Henriques said...

Oh God! So much nonsensical pessimism!




... Come on!

Cudoine said...

These leaders and elite of which you speak belong substantially to a single generation that came of age in the late sixties, the children of the West's cultural revolution. F*ck the pessimism, this game is a long way from over demographics change and the odds of the islamic world descending into complete chaos are great. Islam is brittle, once belief breaks it will crumble wholesale. not over by a long shot.

Professor L said...

I find it hard to believe that all is lost. Frankly, the decline of political protests has many Boomers who prefer barricades and violence aghast, but social networking through Twitter and Facebook has seen support for Iranian and Burmese protesters skyrocket. It's something no protest could ever achieve, that sort of international coordination (not to mention plenty of us are busy enough trying to keep up with life).

The conservatism of today's younger generation is also lamented by many of the vocal Boomers. They still view themselves as anti-establishment, but they have become the establishment, and that hypocrisy is now their worst enemy.

So there's no need to fret. The young are not going to continue the revolution, and the broad access to blogs like this means they can access information that may otherwise be unavailable to them (it is ironic to note that the only regimes that are trying to block access to the internet are actually towards the Left of the spectrum - China, and Australia, currently ruled by the Australian Labor Party (yeah, they misspelt it. What do you expect?). Bloody totalitarians!).

Ron Russell said...

I know not what course history may take, but I am aware of the ebb and flow in the current of time. I firmly believe, "nothing is written" and even an ill wind bring some good. I believe in the future and the ultimate trimupt of good over evil and I see this struggle as just that--black and white, good and evil.

Michael Servetus said...

I thought I would just share some rambling unpolished thoughts that came to mind as a result of reading this post.

Muslims behave as a people who believe in their own culture, our people do not. We are a diviided nation. What usually has been spoken as a proverb has more present reality to it right now, a house divided against itself can't stand. Western society is too fragmented and divided to take a stand.
Of course we know that this division is caused by the leftist subversive, it is they who have changed not the so called conservative who embodies classic sane liberalism. What is today still called liberalsim as we all know is not liberalsim anymore but social marxism verging on an Orwellian new world order of democratic tyranny.

When I take my amateur look back at history I see Westerners who were tough,nasty, intolerant yet moral believers, passionate, inconsiderate, rough, plain speaking, vulgar, fierce, deadly, stubborn, proud,narrowminded, ambitious and many other "nasty" little things, but I say all these nasty things may have been some key ingredients necessary to success and being top dog.Isn't there only a fine line drawn between virtue and vice made up of the tension of moderation. You might be aware that non whites or simply non westerners still possess all these winning characteristics unashamedly.
I believe contrary to some that post here that non whites can and do become in essence "whites" and by that I mean,those from a non-white or Western background can recognize a superior and excellent culture in all its winning aspects of course and see fit as a wise person to adopt it as their own. I don't believe it is "white" I believe it is tried, tested, and universally wise, and reasonable. I also believe some people have a hard time recongnising these things and discerning the difference between the right and the wrong, truth and error, wisdom and foolishness. Conversely some Westerners become non westerners by adopting causes and sympathies that are anti western which may be due to emotional disorders and or weaknesses in intellectual vigor.

Of course along with these winning characteristics come some unwanted excesses, prejudices, hurt feelings,anger,dominance and submissions as in winners and losers.

Every system must be hostile to foreign intrusion in ordr to maintain its integrity, if it doesn't want to lose its' self.

this self protection, defense, offense will seem as hate, warfare, rejection whatever other word you can think of to the enemy but that is to the enemy not the system or organism we speak of. It would be like the opportunistic virus trying to equate its life with the healthy life of the healthy organsim it will infect and alter. Their respective "healths'" are two incompatible things they cannot create a partnership on the basis of mutual health and cooperate with each other, when each ones health means the death of the other.

Michael Servetus said...

I should also add that it seems the left subversives has those qualities right now and it seems they are winning. The so called right is a bit docile and nice. The left is nasty, bullish, rude, dishonest, arrogant,self righteous, violent and all the things the things that while condemned seem to be the characteristics it takes to rule. again these are just unpolished ideas, that will perhaps fall under closer scrutiny and examination, but can't it be said that all the peace we have ever had came through war and that so called peace is all just a build up to war.

Michael Servetus said...

Upon further reflection, allow me to correct myself a bit, I don't think it is those nasty qualities that have won the day neither am I saying they are great. I think it would be closer to the truth to say that the moderation of those human impulses through reason have won the day for the West. I mentioned that these characteristics run wild in many places and that is the downfall of those places, the fact that they have them not in moderation but are ruled by them as slaves to passions. Wheras I think the West developed a school of thought that culminated in a balance between virtue and vice. I may be inaccurate in my opinion but I feel as though people don't get angry anymore or wrathful at things they should. That is the point of my thoughts and I think practically speaking some real anger is necessary right now to win and yet it seems the left is perpetually angry and full of self righteous indignation which seems to move things in their favor and lead weak minded fools to believe them on the basis of their outrage.

Takuan Seiyo said...

Courage.

The recognition that this is a runaway train destined to crash does not have to lead to the conclusion that all is lost. Therefore, people who decry analyses such as the Baron’s for their “pessimism” merely try to alter the picture to make it more pretty. That is a sure recipe for defeat.
And the people who have the fortitude to see the true picture are wasting their insight if they draw from it a prescription for passive resignation.
The odds and the travails we are facing are nothing compared to what George Washington faced. A more recent example -- worth learning from too -- is one of the US Marine Corps’ greats, Chesty Puller. Study what he said and what he did when surrounded by far superior enemy forces in the Korean War.
On a personal note, my own mother – young then, innocent and inexperienced -- jumped from a train destined for a German extermination camp. She knocked out the grating on the little cattle car window with the heel of her shoe, jumped, was not hit by the bullets of the Wehrmacht soldiers riding shotgun on the train rooftops, and survived wandering in the Eastern European winter in the deep forest wearing just a light shift for days afterwards.
Compared to that, we are just facing a riotously laughable bunch of conniving retard bumblers. They have the upper hand now, but it’s just the third inning.

Free Hal said...

I agree with Takuan. The Baron absolutely isn't advocating giving up, or pessimism. He's telling us to see and think clearly:

"It may be too late to do anything about this slow-motion train wreck, but it’s important to see clearly what has happened to us."

I agree. I hope people will take time to think clearly about what is happening and what we can do.

My own view is that the modern ruling class will succeed in breaking democracy, and certainly welfare democracy, but that we have the chance to make something much better.

That is in our own hands and depends, first, on our willingness to see and to think.

Best wishes,

Hal

Professor L said...

Jonathon Haidt gave this talk over at Ted Talks on the roots of the moral mind. Notice what he says - the lefties generally only accept two of the five root moral precepts (and conservatives place equal importance on all of them). He also notes that it was the conservatives who built the great civilisations.

Hope that you enjoy the video, and find it as informative as I did.

Anonymous said...

I thoroughly enjoyed Diane West's book 'The Death of the Grown-Up'.

If you haven't give it a look yet, you should.

One_of_the_last_few_Patriots_left said...

Takuan, God bless your mother! I found this story quite fascinating and I hope you will describe it in more detail for us sometime.

When the war started, my own mother found herself with three young children and no husband (he was a Polish officer and was murdered by the Soviets in the Katyn Forest massacre) and no resources but her wits and a few family members. One daughter died of disease and she was separated from her other daughter (who lives in Poland to this day.) She not only managed to survive, but escaped with her son (the youngest) to return to the United States (she had been born here.) Her son (my older brother) went on to enlist in the US Air Force and would eventually retire after more than 30 years of service with the rank of Colonel.
My mother passed away in 2007 at the age of 91.

Where was my father when all of this was going on? He was doing slave labor for the Nazi's in the forests of East Prussia, having been picked up by a press gang that came to his family's farm. Eventually, he escaped, along with a couple of his cousins who had also been taken by the press gang, and WALKED home (about 300 kms.)
Some months later, the press gang came through and grabbed him again. He did not get free again until the area was overrun by advancing Soviet troops. Total time doing slave labor: about 2 years.
My father had also been born in the US and was able to return here after the war "on the last ship to leave Gdansk" before the Communist
government closed the borders.
My father worked as a machinist for 26 years and retired in the 1980's.
He passed away in 2002. He was almost 80 at the time.

When my parents returned to the US, they both came to live with relatives in Massachusetts and that is where they met each other. My twin brother and I are the happy results of that union.

Takuan, your point is well taken:
FIGHT! NEVER GIVE UP!

Are we not made of the same stuff as our mothers and fathers?

Takuan Seiyo said...

@One of the last

My mother's story is in several ways like Sophie's in Sophie's choice, except she was not married and had no children then, and the story had a happy ending, if you can call the survival and return to normalcy of a person whose family had been murdered, happy. She cheated death not just in the instance I mentioned, but on four different occasions, including being one of the four survivors of a concentration camp that was "liquidated" and getting to see the camp's commandant on the stand with her as a chief witness for the prosecution. Your mentioning Katyn is relevant, as in the region of Poland that my mother was from, they got is from the Russians in 39-41 and from the Germans in 41-44. I have to rectify an error I made in a previous post: her escape from the train was not in the winter but at the end of September.

I had just started writing a novel based on my mother's story, when a visit in the U.S. in 2006 after 18 months of absence struck me with the sheer tragedy of the national decomposition I was seeing all around me. I decided that I had to lay my personal projects aside, and put my writing skills to use in the defense of my country. However, I will complete that novel and see it published, for the story needs to be told. BTW, my father had quite a story too, but he died earlier, before I could spend the many hours of interviewing and recording that years later I would use to get my mother's story out of her. What I do know of it illustrates the importance and utility of fighting against all odds. My father was Jewish, and the odds for a Jew to survive in WW2 Poland were 1 in 30. Yet he did, and without a day in any ghetto or camp. He joined a guerrilla group and spent the entire war period with the underground, often living in the deep forest, and fighting the Germans.

The tragedy of our people, of the Western peoples in general, is that every one of us is here because his ancestors went through unimaginable pain, hardship, and fighting -- often against Muslims invaders if his roots lie East or South of Vienna. And anyone who thinks old-stock Americans are exempt from this paradigm because they have had is so nice and easy for so many generations, should dig deeper into the histories of the colonies, the westward migrations etc. The most appalling thing to me in any stock multiculti liberal is that he is a traitor to his ancestors.

One_of_the_last_few_Patriots_left said...

Indeed, Takuan, hair raising stories are pretty much standard fare for members of that generation.

Because my mother had been married to a Polish officer, the NKVD spent a good deal of time looking for her. She managed to stay one step ahead of them, warned by relatives and friends.

My father had to pilfer food because the Krauts did not feed their slave laborers much, even though it was energy intensive outdoors work (forestry.) He found a large wall map of the area in an office. He managed to scrounge a piece of paper and a pencil stub. He would study a small portion of the map, return to his barracks, and redraw that part of the map from memory. After repeating this process for many days, he had a fairly accurate and complete map, and so was able to determine his location and the best route home.

Our parents were ingenious and resourceful, and stout-hearted in the face of the gravest adversity.
To honor their memory, WE MUST DO NO LESS.

Anonymous said...

Sebastian, there's only one truth in the world - it's all about dominance. You either are dominated or you are submitted. You either lead or you are lead. There's no such thing as equality, there's only competition. It's sad that all European people forgot about this cold reality. A society that is intolernt, tough, fierce, stubborn, proud, ambitious, fierce will thrive. One who is the opposite will perish.

And the West wasn't that inconsiderate. It was more considerate than everyone at that time. Besides, a nation isn't really supposed to care about putting other people in front of it's own.

Cudoine, I'd like to ask you a question. And if Islam goes away, then what? Let's suppose that all the Muslims in Europe will stop believing tomorrow and become atheist. Does this change the fact that Europeans will be minorities in their own countries? I mean, I could care the less about saving a country from Islam just so that immigrants free ride on my effort and the effort my ancestors put into building a country.

Takuan, I agree with you. We aren't through yet and things are still reversible to some extent. We are just slowly circling the drain and taking a nosedive to the toilet. But we're not either down the drain nor in the toilet... YET. I don't see things changing, even though I doubt people in 1950 imagined the West taking the types of immigrants it took. Still, the mindset shift took place because of a booming population, appeasing parents that spoiled their children(think of the US parents fighting the WW2 and growing up in the Great Depression) and the leftist claptrap in the 1960s academic life. Now, even if all young people would have the same thoughts as me, we wouldn't change anything because we are far from a big voting group. So I don't see a reinstatement of traditional culture, people finding discrimination good and so on. Especially since this would mean we'd have to deal with the people we already have here because we would stop denying they're a problem. And this would mean for a lot of people to denounce everything they believed in for their whole life and say everything they believed in was a mistake and literally conclude that 'they're bad people'. It won't happen. Maybe the bankruptcy of most of OECD countries will trigger people rejecting certain things, but it won't solve anything. I don't know, I'm facing a tough decision about my life. Either just enjoy Europe before it becomes less fun to live in and move to Asia and have a life of unimpeded hedonism or live a life of dissent. And here we come at renouncing everything one believes in. The former has all the incentives. I'm a fairly pretty young girl and I could have a fun life, while I have no incentive to do the right thing. Basically, I'm not doing it just because of the ideas I have and that I know it's the right thing. Just like I know that I will try to not have children if I can't have them inherit a sane country in which they'll be able to live among their own. I completely agree with the traitor to his own ancestors thing. In a way, I'm more disgusted by my own people than the other groups.

Anonymous said...

Sebastian, there's only one truth in the world - it's all about dominance. You either are dominated or you are submitted. You either lead or you are lead. There's no such thing as equality, there's only competition. It's sad that all European people forgot about this cold reality. A society that is intolernt, tough, fierce, stubborn, proud, ambitious, fierce will thrive. One who is the opposite will perish.

And the West wasn't that inconsiderate. It was more considerate than everyone at that time. Besides, a nation isn't really supposed to care about putting other people in front of it's own.

Cudoine, I'd like to ask you a question. And if Islam goes away, then what? Let's suppose that all the Muslims in Europe will stop believing tomorrow and become atheist. Does this change the fact that Europeans will be minorities in their own countries? I mean, I could care the less about saving a country from Islam just so that immigrants free ride on my effort and the effort my ancestors put into building a country.

Takuan, I agree with you. We aren't through yet and things are still reversible to some extent. We are just slowly circling the drain and taking a nosedive to the toilet. But we're not either down the drain nor in the toilet... YET. I don't see things changing, even though I doubt people in 1950 imagined the West taking the types of immigrants it took. Still, the mindset shift took place because of a booming population, appeasing parents that spoiled their children(think of the US parents fighting the WW2 and growing up in the Great Depression) and the leftist claptrap in the 1960s academic life. Now, even if all young people would have the same thoughts as me, we wouldn't change anything because we are far from a big voting group. So I don't see a reinstatement of traditional culture, people finding discrimination good and so on. Especially since this would mean we'd have to deal with the people we already have here because we would stop denying they're a problem. And this would mean for a lot of people to denounce everything they believed in for their whole life and say everything they believed in was a mistake and literally conclude that 'they're bad people'. It won't happen. Maybe the bankruptcy of most of OECD countries will trigger people rejecting certain things, but it won't solve anything. I don't know, I'm facing a tough decision about my life. Either just enjoy Europe before it becomes less fun to live in and move to Asia and have a life of unimpeded hedonism or live a life of dissent. And here we come at renouncing everything one believes in. The former has all the incentives. I'm a fairly pretty young girl and I could have a fun life, while I have no incentive to do the right thing. Basically, I'm not doing it just because of the ideas I have and that I know it's the right thing. Just like I know that I will try to not have children if I can't have them inherit a sane country in which they'll be able to live among their own. I completely agree with the traitor to his own ancestors thing. In a way, I'm more disgusted by my own people than the other groups.

Anonymous said...

One of the last few Patriots left, it's funny in a way that everyone from Eastern Europe has relatives that were through this sort of thing. My family history is filled with running and fighting both the Nazis and the communists, filled with jailing, forced labour and the like(I won't go into details, but my paternal great grandfather was Jewish and lived in Austria and escaped the Nazis, for example). And even though we are made from the same thing as our parents and grandparents(at least in my case), the context is completely different. Right now, we aren't opressed by an outsider, but by our own people. The entire modern culture and way of thinking is the one pushing us to our own doom. I'd have no problem with fighting, but it's like being a soldier in an army that surrendered. Basically, white people are the only ones who don't do the me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin, my cousins and me against the whole world thing like the Afghans.

Takuan Seiyo said...

@rebelliousvanilla

Think about how the Left achieved its dominance not through violence but through patient tunneling: the Long March. We need not have a majority; we just need to be better organized and more dedicated. Above all, note the implications of the term ‘community organizing'.
To organize, we need a community.

I don’t mean a Web chain, or visiting websites, or organizing for the Tea Party, though all those things are useful. ‘Community’ – of the kind BHO was ‘organizing’ – means living in close proximity to each other. There are millions of us, but everywhere we are a small minority. We need to be in areas where we are a large majority. And we need to feel friendly to and responsible for each other. I’ll be writing much more about this in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, forgive me for taking a paternal tone, but the age difference warrants it. Think about the terms “unimpeded hedonism” and “fun life.” Now, I’ve been around for long enough to have taken a good look at people who live a fun life with unimpeded hedonism -- in its European, American and Asian versions. You seem like a person with a good brain and a soul. Based on this, I can paraphrase Woody Allen and tell you that you would not like to be a member of this club that would have you as a member.

Chechar said...

Taksei:

Sophie’s Decision is one of my favorite films.

Remember the hotel mentioned in passing in my last GoV chapter of the Quetzalcoatl series? In the ballroom I met Jack Oran (real name: Yakoff Skurnik). He’s the main character of one of the most touching and searing testimonies about the Holocaust I have read: 80629: A Mengele Experiment.

I write a lot about Skurnik in my 2nd book.

Takuan Seiyo said...

@Chechar
“Sophie’s Choice” is a great work of art both as a book and a film. Mengele survivors still live among us, and it’s good remembering them, for soon they’ll be gone and many will say it never happened. Here is one:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,666327,00.html
(Sorry, don’t have link embedding skill).